Review: Le chant des Ondes

T'Cha Dunlevy, GAZETTE FILM CRITIC03.13.2013

Jean-Loup Dierstein examines an Ondes Martenot in Montrealer Caroline Martel's film Le chant des ondes, a documentary about the eerie and obsucre electronic instrument, invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. Dierstein repairs and has even started building the instruments, one of which he made for Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood.

Polish film mixes political commentary, family drama and understated tension

Le chant des Ondes

Four stars out of five

Documentary

Directed by: Caroline Martel

Duration: 95 mins.

Parental guidance: for all.

Playing at: Excentris cinema

MONTREAL — When Caroline Martel filmed an encounter with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood for her documentary Le chant des ondes, it may well have been he — not she — who had the most jitters.

The year was 2006. The British rock band was in town to perform at Place des Arts. The scene was the first Martel shot for her five-year film project, an evocative history and search for the mysterious spirit of the Ondes Martenot.

The obscure electronic instrument, invented in 1928 by former French telegraph operator Maurice Martenot, has an eerie sound that brings to mind haunted houses, snake charmers and old sci-fi films. Greenwood is a convert, having used the Ondes Martenot repeatedly in Radiohead’s music. But he is self-taught, and was self-conscious.

“Caroline Martel came to film at a Radiohead sound check,” he said this week in an email interview. “She filmed me playing (very nervously) in front of Suzanne Binet-Audet, a real Ondiste.”

For Greenwood, the chance to rub shoulders with an experienced player of the instrument was enhanced by getting his first informal lesson.

“(Binet-Audet) pointed out that I play with the wrong finger in the ribbon,” he said, referring to the ring that slides down a wire running alongside the Ondes keyboard. “But then, there was no one to teach me when I started. I remember when I got my first one, having no idea what to do to make a sound from it. There were no instructions, just a lot of buttons marked N, O, G, D2, etc.”

The ability to manipulate the ribbon is part of what gives the Ondes Martenot its personality, as sounds change according to the technique, movements and individuality of each player.

Greenwood first discovered the instrument through the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen, and was captivated.

“It sat in the middle of a lot of acoustic sounds, so naturally,” he said, “whilst still being a noise from another world.”

The Radiohead guitarist-keyboardist has gone on to become a sort of modern ambassador of the instrument, even commissioning a new one from Jean-Loup Dierstein, an electronic-instrument repairman-turned-Ondes Martenot maker, also interviewed in the film. It was the first Ondes Martenot that Dierstein built, a process that took nearly four years (instead of the originally anticipated year and a half), but that was worth the wait, according to Greenwood.

“It’s hard to stop playing it,” he said, of his new toy. “It sounds wonderful, and feels like playing a violin or cello — there’s the same connection between my fingers and the sound of electricity as there would be between a violinist’s fingers and strings.”

Martel first discovered the Ondes Martenot while making her 2004 film, The Phantom of the Operator, for which Binet-Audet provided the soundtrack. In many of the post-screening question periods, people asked about the mysterious music on the soundtrack.

“I felt like, instead of explaining the instrument, I should allow people to discover it through cinema,” said the Montreal-based filmmaker. “I wasn’t interested in doing something historical or didactic. When I discovered that there were people trying to rebuild the instruments — I heard all kinds of rumours — and. of course, when I heard that Jonny Greenwood had started collaborating with Ondistes to accompany him in Radiohead concerts and writing music for the Ondes Martenot, I felt that something was happening in the present, and that there was a film to make.”

Martel does cover the basics in her film, but she also takes us on a voyage. We learn about Maurice Martenot, half mad scientist, half poet, who conceived his instrument in seemingly haphazard fashion, inspired by the humming and static sounds made by the telegraph machines he operated during the First World War. He built fewer than 300 of the instruments that bear his name during his lifetime, of which there are only about 70 left.

Rather than make a “cliché music doc,” Martel got carried away by the spirit of the Ondes — or Le chant des Ondes, as per her title (a reference to the “call of the sirens”). The result is an entrancing, inquisitive film that advances in many directions at once, following traces and picking up trails as it attempts to capture the intrigue that has drawn people to the Ondes for so many decades.

“We really tried to develop a form, a structure and a narrative that would espouse the wavelength of the instrument,” she said. “It’s kind of floating, going up and down.”

The film’s English title is Wavemakers — and though there are no English screenings as of yet, a collaboration with Pop Montreal is being discussed.

Greenwood has been a big supporter, agreeing to be interviewed to help spread awareness of the film and the instrument. The musician would like nothing better than to see more Ondes on the music scene.

“I wish there was a very basic model being made in large numbers,” he said. “The real one is quite complicated to build. (A more available version) might get more people learning and playing it.”

Martel marvels at the rock star’s enthusiasm.

“He has done a lot in the last decade to put a spotlight on the instrument,” she said.

Radiohead was in town again last summer, and Martel organized a special screening of her film for cast and crew, which Greenwood attended. What did he think?

“It was very good,” he said. “It really captured the strangeness of (the Ondes Martenot’s) history, and the strangeness of some of the people — most of the people — who are so passionate about it. I’m proud to be part of that club.”

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